Pretty Like Poison
by feathers and ash
Summary: Division 11. In the kitchen. Enough said. Division 11 gencrack with a dash of YumichikaxIkkaku on the side.


Originally written as a giftfic for **bloodbath-party** at LJ. :D

* * *

" _Yumichika_."

"Hm?" Bastard didn't even bother to look up, Ikkaku noted.

"Yumichika, what the hell are you – are you _preening over a frying pan_?"

"It has a reflective finish!" Yumichika protested. "It's not as if I could help myself, Ikkaku."

A vein in Ikkaku's temple throbbed, and he looked very close to simply grabbing aforementioned frying pan and beating his partner with it. Or perhaps himself, because if it hit Yumichika in the face, he'd have to live through a litany of anguished wails that, quite frankly, would be worse than getting a concussion himself.

"Give me the pan, Yumichika. You're supposed to be helping us _cook_."

And now Yumichika finally did look up, and pure hurt was etched all over his face. "Ikkakuuuu, you can't possibly be implying that I'm not prettier than that ghastly hunk of raw meat over there. Can you?"

"It won't be as ugly once it's cooked," Ikkaku gritted. "Now c'mon."

"Ikkaku!" Oh, shit. Now Yumichika was flailing. And pouting. At the same time. That was _never_ a good sign. "You didn't answer my question!"

"Huh? What question?"

"Am I, or am I not, prettier than that hunk of meat over there?!"

Ikkaku just stared.

"I know how you are about cut-up dead things!" Yumichika continued mercilessly.

"Awww, Fairy-san!" As she was wont to do, Yachiru suddenly bounded out of nowhere, grinning wildly with candy stuck to her teeth and tugging at Yumichika's robes with sugar-sticky hands. "If Pachinko-head didn't like you more than dead things, he wouldn't be sneaking into your room all the time to play, when he could be out killing stuff instead!"

Kenpachi, who had unfortunately been taste-testing something across the room, promptly choked.

Yumichika paid absolutely no attention to his captain's plight. Instead, he blinked down at the hyperactive little ball of vice-captain still clinging to him – and then his whole face lit up and he began to _wiggle_. (Ikkaku wasn't sure if this was more out of glee, or more an attempt to dislodge Yachiru's hands from his clothes before she dirtied them.)

"Of course, of course," he all but purred. "I'm far more beautiful than dead things. Animals just don't know how to die beautifully. Neither do most humans, actually, and hollows certainly don't. It's all a terrible pity. But at least it makes me the prettiest!"

And then he made another grab for the frying pan before Ikkaku darted forward and yanked it out of his reach.

"WOULD YOU SHUT THE HELL UP," Kenpachi rasped, voice still hoarse from having choked just a few moments prior.

Yumichika brought a delicate hand across his mouth, but not before Ikkaku could see his blooming smirk.

_He's doing this on purpose_.

"YOU'RE GONNA MAKE ME LOSE MY FUCKIN' APPETITE."

_Or your sanity_, Ikkaku thought, and he could feel the headache coming on.

* * *

But things went quietly, after that. For roughly ten minutes. 

"Yachiru," Yumichika murmured, hovering over the girl, "your cookies certainly look beautiful, but…what's that you put in them?"

"Glitter!" she answered promptly, looking terribly pleased with this new baking development.

"Ah…glitter? I don't think the recipe called for that, Vice-captain."

"My way is better than the recipe! Cookies taste good and glitter is shiny, so they go together, right, Fairy-san?"

"But glitter isn't edible. You're not really supposed to eat it."

"I eat lotsa stuff I'm not supposed to!" And somehow, she looked even prouder of this fact. "If it's shiny and fits in your mouth, it can't be that bad for you!"

"But Vice-captain." Yumichika was now kneeling on the floor and looking at her with a very earnest expression, and Ikkaku wondered how the _hell_ he managed patience like that when he was deliberately trying to give their Captain a coronary. "With glitter in them, your cookies will be too pretty to eat!"

That stopped Yachiru dead in her tracks, and she tilted her head. "Too pretty?"

"Of course they will be too pretty." Yumichika nodded firmly. "It would be wasteful to eat something so pretty, and we'll have to leave them out so everyone can look at them instead."

"But…" Yachiru's face began to fall, and she looked longingly at her glitter-filled cookies.

"You can make more cookies!" Yumichika hastened to assure her. "For eating, ones without glitter! And then we can put the beautiful glitter cookies on display where everyone can see them, and eat the regular cookies while we admire them. Okay?"

"Okay!" Yachiru agreed cheerfully, lips now curving in a wildly happy grin. And abruptly, she flung her arms briefly around Yumichika before bouncing off to find ingredients for more cookie dough.

Once she was gone, Kenpachi leveled a look at him that quite clearly said, _And this is why I don't kick your ass_.

Yumichika only smiled coyly and brushed a hand through his hair. (He bit back the _Aw, you keep me around because I'm beautiful_, but it was still etched smugly all over his face.)

* * *

It was a good thing Kenpachi got his voice back from the choking, because he soon had reason to bellow yet again. 

"HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO COOK MEAT IN THIS THING" – and here his temple twitched so badly that it set one of his bells jingling – "WHEN THERE'S GLITTER ALL OVER THE DAMN OVEN?"

"Oh, sorry about that, Ken-chan!" Yachiru bubbled with a completely unapologetic grin. "I think my cookies kind of exploded in there! I don't think I really bothered to measure the ingredients just right; I just made sure to put in lots and lots of glitter!"

"Why the _hell_," Kenpachi forced out, "am I even having a conversation about glitter and fuckin' exploding cookies, anyway?"

"Because I wanted to make pretty glitter-cookies to make you happy!"

"And why are fuckin' glitter-cookies supposed to make me happy to begin with?"

"Because they make _me_ happy, and Ken-chan likes whatever puts me in a good mood!"

_The kid has Captain there_, Ikkaku realised, and he felt Yumichika behind him and stifling a giggle into his shoulderblade.

Kenpachi seemed to know it, too. "Just – just – just clean the damn thing out! And no more glitter in food!"

"Okay, Ken-chan!"

Yachiru grabbed for a rag, and then – "YACHIRU, I DIDN'T MEAN CRAWL _INTO_ THE OVEN."

"But it's all shiny in there, Ken-chan!" she wailed, stopped just outside its door. "And I'd fit right in it and I could get covered in glitter myself!"

"I AM NOT DEALING WITH UNOHANA IF SHE THINKS I LET YOU BURN YOURSELF ALIVE."

* * *

Not surprisingly, Yumichika and Ikkaku were forced into cleaning out the oven themselves. But at least no one had to be sent down to the 4th Division, and finally, _somehow_, the meal was ready. 

"I'm so glad we're eating at this table!" Yachiru announced over dinner. "It must be a very special table, because I've seen Baldy and Fairy-san playing on it so many times! Maybe it's the most awesome table in all of Soul Society, and we get to eat at it!"

Kenpachi really should have learned by this point not to eat anything with the rest of his squad around. But apparently that lesson had just not sunk in, as evidenced by the choking sounds and food being suddenly spat across the table.

("Captain!" Yumichika shrilled. "At least what we did here was far lovelier than _that_!")

* * *

"That," Ikkaku announced later that night, flopping backwards onto the bed and flinging an arm across his eyes, "was a disaster." 

"Mm, I don't think it went too badly, Ikkaku," Yumichika countered softly, standing over him, his voice lowering and slipping into a bit of a lilt.

Ikkaku knew that tone well.

"Oi, Yumichika, don't tell me _that_ fuckin' spectacle got you turned on."

"It's not that…" Yumichika's voice now trailed off, hitching just the tiniest bit. "It's just, Ikkaku…you're covered in glitter."

Oh, shit.

"And it's _pretty_."

A pause, as he accepted the inevitable.

"I'm never gonna get any damned sleep tonight, am I?"

He uncovered his eyes just in time to see Yumichika grin wickedly there in the dark.

"Absolutely not."


End file.
